While the “Homeland” polygraph interactive feature was “in site,” this “Homeland” game pushes players in YouTube for a choose-your-own-adventure style game which uses YouTube annotations as a game mechanism to enable new chapters.

In the “Homeland Interactive Surveillance” game, you are in the shoes of a CIA agent, charged with taking on a variety of surveillance duties in order to play an important part in thwarting a terrorist plot. Each chapter you’re given a specific duty, and once you “spot” what you’re supposed to be looking for, a right answer will propel you to a new level.

The concept works really nicely with one of the show’s early storylines, where Carrie sets up an illegal home surveillance on a back-from-Iraq POW in his family’s home. She’s obsessed with watching all the cameras, looking for a clue to confirm her suspicions. I also like the conceit that you’re plausibly taking part in the game in a way that a real-life CIA agent may be taking part — scouring a bank of monitors for a clue that may slip by in a second. 

While the animations are really slick, there’s no original footage included in the game from the principal actors, which really could have pushed this interactive special to the next level. It is fun how they use clips from the show in response to how you fare in the game, but it would have been nice to see one of the characters involved. And because it takes place in the world of “Homeland,” including one of its villains, it’s a fair “transmedia” extension, where audiences can influence a narrative and outcome, even if it’s not the primary narrative of the series.

(Source: youtube.com)

While the “Walking Dead” social game continues to remain under wraps, it appears that it’s going to be released in April, and will have a two part structure which involves establishing a camp, and then going “ranging” for supplies. 

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m unfamiliar with the “Walking Dead” books, just the TV series, so I’ll just be approaching this one from that angle.

There’s still not a lot to go on in terms of evaluating the “transmedia” content of this extension, but so far I like the way they’re taking “Walking Dead” to Facebook. It appears that they’ve found a way to “Farmville-ize” the series, breaking the world down into a “farm” and “quest” type situation. 

Like the “Heartland Ranch” game that CBC launched last fall for their show, “Heartland,” on Facebook, the “Walking Dead” social game feels like a good fit for the series, as a way for fans to build their own little part of “Walking Dead” narrative, while also using the addictive properties of social gaming to draw in friends into the experience. Unlike “Heartland Ranch,” the “Walking Dead” game should include a high amount of carnage.

I do wonder if the original cast of the series will be appearing in the game… I can see them appearing to give advice to new players, and maybe even offering up some challenges. I also like how this plays nicely with themes explored in season two of “Walking Dead,” where the characters talk about the challenges of surviving on a farm, and the dangers of looking for supplies.

The only question I do have, is that will the “Walking Dead” audience take to a Facebook game like “Heartland” fans did to their ranches. “Walking Dead” is a very “grown up” show with gore and violence and death, and I wonder if that will present some kind of incongruity between looking at baby pictures and motivational posters one minute in your Facebook feed, then jumping into a zombie game the next. Or, are the people who use Facebook on the regular and play Facebook games the same people that watch “Walking Dead”? I think there will be more than a few, judging by the excitement on the game’s Facebook page so far.

(Source: facebook.com)

While not necessarily “TV” focused, I still wanted to highlight this game adaptation of the “Walking Dead” comic book (which inspired the popular series of the same name), because I really like how the game creators discuss story. You can watch for yourself here in a series of web clips on the TellTale games site which goes over the game and how they adapted the comic books and the entire “Walking Dead” world. I haven’t read the comic books, but I have seen the series, and what I appreciate is that the approach they’re taking to this game, is that they want the game to exist in the same way the characters in the book and show do. I don’t want to spoil anything if you’re new to the series, but it sounds like the game takes place when Rick is in a coma, so for those of us who’ve only seen the TV series, it’ll fill in a lot of gaps we may have with the mythology… again with the books, I can’t really speak to.

So the thing that really stuck out to me from the creators of the games, is how they described what they wanted to achieve with this game; they noted that “zombie” games are usually just a horde coming at you and are obsessed with the whole apocalyptic world itself and how the world works and how it was ruined, etc. From what I’ve gleaned from the creators, is that they want to make a zombie game more like the comic/series, where the characters are more about moment-to-moment survival, and about the human element, making more of a story-rich game, than just a blood-and-gore type game.

And to use the “T” word (“transmedia”), this is an often tried extension, with usually mixed results, because it takes a narrative and tries to de-narrative it. Like the “Lost” video game, it’s introducing new characters in a similar environment, which makes a lot of sense for this world, because there really are countless stories and entry points that could be created in this “Walking Dead” world. So far, the game looks promising!